Da Lat to open flower trading centre

Lam Dong (VNA) – Da Lat City
in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong is working with Japanese OTA
Floriculture Auction Limited Company and relevant local agencies to establish a
flower trading centre in the city.

The centre will be set up at the bottom
of Mimosa Pass, a gateway to Da Lat, on an area of 16.6 ha with a maximum
purchasing capacity of 2.5 million branches a day and is expected to trade 550
million flower branches a year.

The facility, once operational in the
next two years, will serve as a trading platform for flower farmers and
consuming units to supply flowers to markets with transparent prices.

Flowers are expected to be auctioned
before reaching the retail market.

The trading centre is important to
create an open and transparent market as well as standards for local flowers,
said Ryoji Kato of the OTA Floriculture Auction.

To date, Lam Dong province had a total flower
growing area of 7,760 ha with an annual output of more than 2.4 billion flower
branches, of which Da Lat and its neighbourhood making up 70 percent of acreage
and production.

Da Lat has built a common brand of Da
Lat Flower used by about 110 grower households. Earnings from the local
floriculture sector currently reach 750 million VND per hectare a year.

OTA Floriculture
Auction is a leading company operating the OTA wholesale market for flowers in
Tokyo which is the largest in Japan and the third largest in the world.-VNA